Moscow rejects suspicions of being involved in damage to the Balticconnector gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea between Finland and Estonia. “Russia has nothing to do with this incident,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday, according to the Interfax agency.
At the same time, he spoke out against statements made by Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics. He had called for the Baltic Sea to be closed to Russian ships if Moscow was proven to have damaged the gas pipeline. Such threats, regardless of who they came from, are unacceptable for Russia, Peskov said in Moscow.
The Finnish government announced on October 10th that the gas pipeline had been damaged two days earlier, presumably due to external influences. It runs between Inkoo in Finland and Paldiski in Estonia. Nearby in the Gulf of Finland, an undersea data cable between Sweden and Estonia was also damaged.
An undersea data cable between Sweden and Estonia was also damaged nearby. The damage was also related to external influences, said Sweden’s Defense Minister Pål Jonson, according to the TT news agency, citing information from the military on Monday. The investigation would have to show whether it was an accident or sabotage.
Finland and Estonia are investigating together, but are holding back from speculating about what happened. However, the incident and suspicions of possible Moscow involvement sparked concern in NATO. Finnish investigators announced last Friday that the Chinese container ship “Newnew Polar Bear” flying the Hong Kong flag was in the region at the time of the damage.
Around a year earlier – in September 2022 – three of four strands of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 Baltic Sea pipelines had been damaged by explosions. Here too, the authorship is still unclear.
